Hot and Bothered (Hot in the Kitchen) (27 page)

“It’s fine. I was supposed to open it when I graduated.”

“You have. You’ve done all this.” She waved her hands around the cellar.

“This isn’t really what he had in mind.” He looked around the wine racks he had built from scratch. “I’d always liked building things so engineering was a logical choice for me. He would have preferred doctor or lawyer, but he was willing to compromise there.” About the only thing the old man would compromise on. Opening the bar would have pleased Vivi, but not his father.

“Frankie said you got a full ride. That you’re some sort of genius.”

From anyone else, it might have sounded snarky but Jules’s voice held an unwelcome reverence. He preferred her bite. Sliding the bottle back into its slot, he raised his eyes to hers.

“You know me pretty well. Do you think I’m a genius?”

“Let me see.” She held up a hand and touched the tips of her fingers in a count. “You date zombified bimbos, you drive that bike far too fast, and you have an unhealthy appreciation for Jason Statham.” Her devastating grin fell away. “And I happen to think you’re a whole lot smarter than you let on.”

“That makes two of us.”

Her pupils flared in acknowledgment. As far as he was concerned, she was on the money. Smart as he was, he didn’t want a challenge when it came to his sex life. He preferred the simplicity of turning off his overactive brain and sliding inside a woman who had no expectations. Hooking up with someone he might actually be interested in on an intellectual or emotional level would be skating a little too close to the drop.

Hell, he had been tottering on that edge since the moment he laid eyes on one Juliet Kilroy. Making love to her was the most real thing he had experienced since his parents had died. So real he sometimes felt he might die if he didn’t hold her in his arms one more time.

But he needed to be her friend. And as much as he hated the fact she was dating, he hated even more how she was going about it.

“Speaking of dating below our level, Lili said you wanted certain types of guys. Guys who didn’t seem too well endowed”—he arched an eyebrow—“in the brain department.”

She blinked rapidly and her swallow was pronounced. “I promised Cara that Cinders would be home by 11 p.m. She’s probably got a search party out already.”

Arresting her move to the exit, he reached out and gentled her back against the glass. The shimmer from the low-lit bar candles reflected off the transparent wall, giving her a halo effect.

“Why are you shooting so low, Jules?”

“I’m not.”

He crowded her, interrogated her with his body. It felt good to wrap himself around her. To own the space between them for these brief moments.

“Boring, unimaginative guys. Guys who can’t possibly appreciate you.”

Discomfort darkened her pale beauty. “I’m not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer. Just ask Monica Grayson.”

“Oh, but you are.” He cupped her chin, surprised even now at how the softness of her skin electrified and soothed him at once. Touching her was his drug, wanting her was his addiction.

“You’re so sharp, it hurts to be around you sometimes. You have the quickest wit of anyone I know and I come from a family of smart mouths. Don’t ever think you’re not good enough, honey.”

What he saw in her eyes devastated him and suddenly he got it. How could he have been so stupid?

“Maybe you’ll find this boring paragon you can walk all over, who bores you to tears, and makes sure you never feel what you must have felt for Evan’s father. Because that’s what this is about, isn’t it? Whoever this guy was, he hurt you so badly that you’d rather hook up with a corpse than feel again.”

“You don’t know a thing about it,” she said through trembling lips.

“I know you and believe it or not, I know me. I’ve been there, Jules. Loving someone and losing them. Hurting so much that it’s easier to block out the possibilities that are staring you right in the face.” This wasn’t the time to indulge in a pity party wankfest, but he needed her to know she was not alone.

Her eyes shone like glossy green buttons. She splayed a hand over his heart, which jumped in acknowledgment of the imminent threat. “Is that what you’ve been doing since they died, Tad? Every year, adding another row of bricks around your heart? Looking for solace in sex?”

See? Smart as a whip. He was supposed to be making her feel better about this lousy ex situation and here she was cutting to the heart of him with her razor-sharp insight.

“We were talking about you.”

“You were. This sharing business works both ways. Tell me why it still hurts so much, Tad. Why you haven’t cooked since they died. Why the mention of your parents sends you to a place I can’t reach you.”

She rubbed his chest, comforting him like he imagined she did with Evan when he was cranky. Those hands of hers were lethal and healing at once.

He sucked air through his lips, making a hissing sound. “I had a fight with my father the night they died. One of those fights where you say things you can’t take back, even if he was around to hear it.”

Her eyes flew wide. “What was it about?”

“What it was always about. School, what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. It was the end of freshman year and I told him I wouldn’t be going back in the fall. I wanted to go to Italy and apprentice with a butcher in Fiesole. That’s where the DeLucas came from. He was furious. He told me I wouldn’t be welcome in his house if I gave up that scholarship and—” He held her gaze with more boldness than he felt, challenging her to judge him. “I told him to go to hell.”

She cupped his jaw and he resisted the urge to fold into her hand. “That was the last time you spoke to him?”

He nodded the head that felt too heavy for his neck. His father’s rage still felt like a tangible thing and Tad had internalized it and made it his own. A messed up way of honoring his memory.

“The accident happened later that night and I never got to fix it. You don’t know what I’d do to have one more minute with them. One more moment to tell them how much I love them.”

This was just the original sin, the foundation brick in the wall. Telling her the rest might break him and he would rather die than face the disappointment in her eyes should the entire sorry tale come out.

“We all carry regrets around with us, Tad, wishes that we had played the cards differently. Keeping it inside and letting it eat away at you isn’t healthy. Don’t hide from me. From the beginning, it’s always been you and me. Simpatico.”

The truth of that punched a hole in that wall.

“From the first moment, it’s been”—she placed her hand over his stomach—“in here.

“A gut thing,” he rasped.

She watched him with those green eyes that cut through all his crap.

“A gut thing. A connection from the beginning. No matter what happens between us, we’ll always be in each other’s gut. I’ll find my safe, boring husband and you’ll keep screwing your way through Chicago. But at the end of the day, this connection between us will still be here. Gut connection. You and me.”

Another few bricks collapsed, exposing his heart for all to see. She could reach inside and grasp it. Hold it close or stomp it. It was hers to own and he didn’t care what she did with it.

“Gut connection,” he whispered.

“You and me,” she said, tilting moist green eyes up to his.

She shrank against the glass, still with her hand on his side. The movement caused her fingertips to slide down to his belt and brought him close enough to share her sweet breath. Hooking a finger behind the buckle, she traced the metal slowly.

Kiss her,
every part of him urged.

So he did.

Just a tickle at first because he wanted to give her a chance to move away. He needn’t have worried. Immediately, her hands clutched at his shirt collar and pulled him close. The inch of space separating them was too much. His blood surged. His balls flamed. The heaven of her mouth claimed him.

He was going with his gut and every other body part cheered in agreement. She unclasped his belt. He peeled off her shirt. Next went her skirt, landing in a puddle at her feet. They played catch up with the rest of his clothes, both of them desperate to get each other naked. He tore at her panties, just ripped them from her body. No finesse, no seduction. Just what it was.

Gut connection.

Soul connection.

She fell back against the cellar’s glass wall, the low bar light shimmering behind her and framing her with a honey-tinged corona. Those perfect, creamy breasts drew his gaze, which he followed down to the soft curve of her belly and the thatch of dark blond hair between her thighs. He would never tire of the beautiful lines of her body.

He nudged her feet apart and ran a finger through her gloriously slick heat. Ready for him. Always ready for him.

“You’re so wet.”

“All night,” she moaned. “From the minute you told that bitch off.”

Stroking through the swelling folds of her pussy, he punctuated with a brush of his finger over her nerve-strung clit. She sighed her pleasure and pushed back against his hand.

“You’re turned on when I protect you,” he murmured, not a little turned on by that idea himself.

“I’m turned on when you breathe.”

He curled his palm behind her head and crushed his mouth to hers, plundering her with possessive thrusts of his tongue that matched the finger-strokes through her saturated heat. Her moans were loud and throaty, and he swallowed them greedily. She was already close but he knew he could make it better for her.

“Turn around.”

“What?” It came out in a sexy quiver.

“I want you to watch the street while I make you come. I want you to know anyone could see you while you’re screaming my name.”

Without hesitation, she turned toward the transparent cellar wall, and that obedience turned him to granite.

“Feel how cool the glass is against your nipples,
mia bella
.”

Covering her with his body, he pushed her flush against the smooth glass, leaving just enough room to slip his hand into the slippery nirvana between her legs.

She moaned, the sound reverberating off the glass, the bottles, his groin. He stroked again over her nerve-packed flesh, gratified when she jerked against his hand. She rocked against him, sawing her body, controlling her pleasure. Her back arched as she pushed back and took what she needed.

It was the hottest thing he had ever seen.

His dick throbbed, pushing against the cleft of her gorgeous ass like it knew what it needed. Like it knew what
he
needed. The heat and musk of her arousal amplified his own, hiking it to a sharp ache. Over her shoulder, the streetlights shone arcs of light against the windows of the bar, illuminating the odd passerby. A curious glance their way would reveal quite the show.

Wild and uninhibited, she rubbed her breasts against the cellar’s glass. Low-lit pools reflected off the transparent wall, bathing her features in soft, ethereal light. She was lost in her own world, a world where she was Goddess.

Worship her.
Over and over those words echoed in his Jules-fried brain. The message was received by his knees, which jackknifed and sent him to the ground.

Where he belonged.

Roughly, he pulled her hips toward him and delved between her legs with first his fingers, and then his mouth. She tasted… oh, Christ, he would need to invent a whole new profile for how good she tasted. Spice, sweet, pepper.

Jules, Jules, Jules.

Again, she bowed her back and spread her thighs to allow him to suck deeper. Her moans echoed through the Cavern, ricocheting off the dick that was about ready to blow.

“Tad,” she screamed just as her thighs clenched and her body juddered in orgasm.

Standing like a drunk who couldn’t hold his liquor, he used her hips as his anchor, only breaking the connection to roll on a condom. Thankfully, she understood what was coming next and she turned to face him.

“Please. Now.” Hot, desperate, and all for him.

He lifted her off the ground and slid into her, hard and fast. How could she be so wet, yet snug enough to wrap him in this torturous, velvet tightness? Holding her in place against the glass, he watched his glistening cock drive into her deeper.

“Look,
mia bella.
Look what you do to me.”

Her lust-stoked gaze fell to where their bodies joined and she made a rough sound in the back of her throat.

“That’s so—oh, Tad. You feel so good inside me.”

He withdrew, every inch outside her body killing him, but honing his desire. Hers, too. No doubt about it. She grasped at his shoulders, and her thighs tensed. Her satin muscles gripped his slick erection.

“Don’t stop,” she moaned. “Don’t ever stop.”

Never.
In this moment, there was only the two of them. There was only this time. This room. This everything. The moment bloomed to clarity. He saw clearly for the first time.

He’d always given short shrift to those loved-up idiots who said sex was a million times better when you had a deeper connection with a woman. Sex was sex. There were degrees, for sure, but it was no great mystery. He happily admitted that sex with Jules was the best he’d ever had.